The Goal: Earn 1 point
(Young Bucks should like this.. how hard can it be to get 1 point?!)

The rules:
"Points" are earned based on the age of the SKCC OM you have a QSO with. Or, rather, the inverse of their age. For example, a QSO with someone who is 65 years old would be worth 1/65 point. Likewise, a QSO with a Young Buck of 20 years would be worth 1/20 point. Once you have made contacts with enough SKCC OM to equal 1 whole point (or more), you're eligible for the award. Of course, since 1/20 is bigger than 1/65, bagging a Young Buck is worth more than an old one!

Kev:How about some handicap or adjustment based on how long the op hasbeen licensed? Should a 65 yr old opr pounding brass for 50 yearsbe the same as 65 yr old just coming into the hobby? Just wondering.

Also, the young buck at 20 doesn't get as much for working the oldguy as the old guy gets for working the young buck. Maybe you thinkthe old guy hasn't much time left so give him more, so he can makeit to 1 faster, hi hi.

Anyway, it is an interesting proposal and will probably take aboutfifty QSO to achieve.

73, Dick k2rfp

And my response:

Hey there Dick. Very interesting points. Keep in mind, I'm not the proposer just the messenger. I found this proposal in our SKCC Projects Forum and thought it was real cool.I won't be able to speak for him so these are just my thoughts.

I don't think it matters much the age of the operator - just the age of the other guy. For instance, if you work me and you are 20 and I am 45 I'll get 1/20th of a point and you'll get 1/45th of a point. Then I go on to work someone 65. I'll get 1/65th of a point and he'll get 1/45th of a point. So, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference what my age is, just the age of the person I work counts towards my score.

I believe this proposal is in response to the recent thread about the average age of CW operators.

With your permission, I would like to copy your question and my answer over to the Forum.

Interesting, but I think it might be easier to understandif, instead of using 1/20 point for a 20-year old and 1/65 for a65-year old, we were to use a system of subtracting the persons agefrom 100 and go for a score of, say, 500 points, or even 1000. A20-year old would thus give 80 points, while a 65-year old would give35 points.

Interesting, but I think it might be easier to understandif, instead of using 1/20 point for a 20-year old and 1/65 for a65-year old, we were to use a system of subtracting the persons agefrom 100 and go for a score of, say, 500 points, or even 1000. A20-year old would thus give 80 points, while a 65-year old would give35 points.

Ahh, but fractions don't have to! We already have this fancy Award Tracker Excel spreadsheet thanks to NN8B. I've added a column to it, to track the AGE of the OP you contact. A simple formula shows you your "points" (or, fraction thereof) at the bottom. Find my modified NN8B award tracker here:

Look for the new AGE column. Plug in some random ages, and see what the total shows up as at the bottom. Obviously, most (all?) of the SKCC membership has internet access, and presumably access to something which can manipulate a spreadsheet (Open Office on Linux should handle this spreadsheet just fine, for those of us going the "M$ free" route). I think the percentage of the group that would not be able to make use of the spreadsheet would be well under 10%, and for them, we can suggest they brush up on their long division :)

As for going the "subtracting age from X" route, X must be >100. I'm sure there is at least one ham out there who's 100 (or more?) years old. We don't want to go getting negative points for contacting them! HI HI

Kev:How about some handicap or adjustment based on how long the op hasbeen licensed? Should a 65 yr old opr pounding brass for 50 yearsbe the same as 65 yr old just coming into the hobby? Just wondering.

Also, the young buck at 20 doesn't get as much for working the oldguy as the old guy gets for working the young buck. Maybe you thinkthe old guy hasn't much time left so give him more, so he can makeit to 1 faster, hi hi.

Anyway, it is an interesting proposal and will probably take aboutfifty QSO to achieve.

73, Dick k2rfp

And my response:

Hey there Dick. Very interesting points. Keep in mind, I'm not the proposer just the messenger. I found this proposal in our SKCC Projects Forum and thought it was real cool.I won't be able to speak for him so these are just my thoughts.

I don't think it matters much the age of the operator - just the age of the other guy. For instance, if you work me and you are 20 and I am 45 I'll get 1/20th of a point and you'll get 1/45th of a point. Then I go on to work someone 65. I'll get 1/65th of a point and he'll get 1/45th of a point. So, I'm not sure it makes much of a difference what my age is, just the age of the person I work counts towards my score.

I believe this proposal is in response to the recent thread about the average age of CW operators.

With your permission, I would like to copy your question and my answer over to the Forum.

73,Kev K4VD

Dead on Kev. This *did* stem from the recent "CW OP age" thread on the yahoogroups list. In fact, I loosely posted the idea there first, then thought it would be better suited for the forum. So yes, the idea of this "award" is to encourage the younger folks to get on the air and make contacts, and the older folks to put forth even more effort into talking to the younger folks (hey, come on guys.. I only need one more 23 year old and I'll make it.. I know you kids are out there.. let's go have a QSO!). Like Dick noted, the whole idea doesn't do much to encourage the younger folks... the 20 year old only gets 1/65th points for their contact with the 65 year old... and would need more contacts to be awarded. Then again, on average, the 20 year old is more sought after, and may glean more contacts as such. The original idea actually probably owes some credit to the FISTS Millennium award (http://fists.org/million.html). The idea somewhat follows their notion:

"We hope to encourage newer FISTS members to get on the air, since they have "bigger" FISTS membership numbers they will be sought after."

Likewise, I was hoping this type of award would "encourage younger SKCCers to get on the air, since their age is worth more points they will be sought after."

I'm certainly keen on finding better ways to make this work.. it was just a rough idea I wanted to throw to the masses for discussion, in the hopes that something real would be molded from it. The discussion has started, which I think shows that it has at least some semblance of merit. I think it best to keep it simple though. That's kinda the idea behind the whole group, isn't it? Simple devices making simple contacts. My concern with handicaps would be that the complexity starts to grow... unless, of course, we can add that into an Excel function too :)

Excellent comments Detrick. I didn't use your name in my post to the Yahoo group because you originally showed up as "Guest". I couldn't figure out who you were.

Let's assume this is going to move forward. Some thought should be given to who is going to run the program. Would that be you? What kind of verification would be needed to confirm the one point? Would a simple email with callsign and age do or is more required?

For the Tribune award, we set that up so no points counted before the program was put into place. This basically started everyone off at the same time. Would you do this for the Young Buck? I, for one, record age (and years hamming) if it is exchanged but many others probably do not.

Also, some of the YL's (and maybe others) might not want to exchange their age. I guess this means a contact with them would not count. Or is there an alternative? If someone doesn't want to give their actual age but wants to participate and give points out, could there be a standard (such as the average age of the ham population) that can be counted? It might sound silly and may not even be worth considering.

Another thing to consider might be not just the age of the ham but maybe how long he or she has been a ham. A ham that is 94 years old but just got his license at 93, now that is remarkable. I guess it is a question of encouraging young hams vs. new hams. Maybe both? I'm 45 years old and have been a ham about 29 years. I would be worth (1/45 + 1/29) points = (74/1305) points. Maybe again I'm adding complications where they aren't needed.

On 2/27/07, fivothree <drewko1@verizon.net> wrote: <snip> Maybe we could have a contest where year of birth (two digits) is exchanged instead of age. Just add 'em up and go for top score. That would still be a Young Buck contest, plus no fractions.

A calendar year is really a more interesting number than an age anyway: 1941, 1929, 1963, etc have much more associated meaning than the ages of people born in those years.

73, Drew AF2Z

I do think the calendar year is *very* interesting. Is it often exchanged in a QSO anyway? I've heard a good bit of "age hr is 57" but cannot recall anything like "born in 1960" being exchanged. We have 7 year olds born in 2000 too...not long before they're on the air (we hope), and worth 00 points?

K4VD wrote:Let's assume this is going to move forward. Some thought should be given to who is going to run the program. Would that be you? What kind of verification would be needed to confirm the one point? Would a simple email with callsign and age do or is more required?

From what I've seen of this group, and some other clubs/organizations I've been involved with, suggesting an idea automatically means you're volunteering to run/coordinate it. I figured going in, it was only a matter of time before someone said, "great idea.. thanks for volunteering to run it." So, yes, I'm prepared for trying to run it. At the same time, I'm a young buck, so I might could use some elmer'ing in running it. It seems simple enough to do, but I can't expect that I know exactly what I'm getting into either.

As for verification, I had purposely not thought that far yet... kinda wanted to wait and see if it would get off the ground before putting much more design effort into it. Could we model it after some of the other awards the club has? The Centurion has a word doc that should be submitted via email. 1x and 2xQRP seems to just need a plain email listing pertinent details (SKCC#, name, power). I would certainly like to keep the whole thing as simple as possible, both for the participants, and for anyone running it. Leaving the submission format open (just send us a list containing SKCC# and age) is certainly easy on the participants, but the program manager could get a plethora of submission formats (here's my attached excel spreadsheet/word doc/text file/sql dump/etc). Building a template like the Centurion's word doc would make for a common submission format, but could be more of a pain for the participants ("I don't use M$word!"). Would it be wrong to ask NN8B to add the age column to his spreadsheet, and would we be difficult to ask participants to send in a copy of the spreadsheet? It certainly makes the math/verification easier, but again, participants might see it as more of a pain than using whatever their preferred data logging method is.

K4VD wrote:For the Tribune award, we set that up so no points counted before the program was put into place. This basically started everyone off at the same time. Would you do this for the Young Buck? I, for one, record age (and years hamming) if it is exchanged but many others probably do not.

I do think starting everyone off at the same time is a good idea. The basis of the idea is to somewhat encourage the young to try to get more involved, and get an award tailored somewhat towards them (at least in name). If we let people use past contacts, we end up with a list of people who qualify instantly... somewhat of a foul start, I think.

K4VD wrote:Also, some of the YL's (and maybe others) might not want to exchange their age. I guess this means a contact with them would not count. Or is there an alternative? If someone doesn't want to give their actual age but wants to participate and give points out, could there be a standard (such as the average age of the ham population) that can be counted? It might sound silly and may not even be worth considering.

I can understand YL's not wanting to give out their age, whether they think it's a very private thing (like weight), or they're concerned about an OM acting inappropriately when they realize they're talking to a "young" YL. The concern is very real, but I have no idea how to tackle it. Hopefully some YL's can weigh (sorry!) in here and give us their real impressions, and some ideas on how they might like the issue resolved. I certainly do not intend to alienate anyone with an award they feel uncomfortable trying to obtain.

K4VD wrote:Another thing to consider might be not just the age of the ham but maybe how long he or she has been a ham. A ham that is 94 years old but just got his license at 93, now that is remarkable. I guess it is a question of encouraging young hams vs. new hams. Maybe both? I'm 45 years old and have been a ham about 29 years. I would be worth (1/45 + 1/29) points = (74/1305) points. Maybe again I'm adding complications where they aren't needed.

This is definitely something else to consider! There's perhaps another option too, but one which may make this too closely resemble the FISTS Millennium award: somehow combine age with SKCC number. Sure, SKCC number is no indication of how long the person has been a ham, but this *is* an SKCC award, and I do not think that their "SKCC age" would be invalid criteria. Also, we're exchanging SKCC# anyway (although, you could argue that "been a ham fer 29 yrs" is a very very common exchange anyway, so we would not be imposing a lot of unnatural "extras" onto a QSO (and, perhaps, we would encourage longer/ragechew QSO's!)) so it would not really be an extra bit of information to collect, that would not normally be known.

I'm SKCC2577, 28 years old, and have been a ham since Dec 06 (2/12 years). Would that make me worth:

1/28+1/.1667 = 6.0345145256662953123660982089293 (anyone licensed 1 year or less is suddenly worth a LOT (relatively), and we need to adjust up the 'point(s) needed to qualify')
-or-
28/2577 = 0.010865347303065580131936360108653 (I'm suddenly not worth very much, although I would think 28 would be a "young buck"?)
-or-
2577/28 = 92 (we need to adjust the 'point(s) needed to qualify' up... a lot...)

Then again, this would also make *you* also possibly worth:
45/605 = 0.074380165289256198347107438016529 (more than me... and (no offense) you've got just a few years of age *and* ham'ing on me)
-or-
605/45 = 13.444444444444444444444444444444 (still need to adjust the 'point(s) needed to qualify' up)

Okay, so I really liked the idea of mixing 'ham fer xx years' in, but how to we do it without creating a mess?

Why not just use four digits for the year (against my earliersuggestion of two digits)? A couple more digits per exchange isn'tgoing to tire us straightkeyers out, right? If there's a 7-year-oldCW op out there the QSO would be worth 2000 points.

And when someone gives me their age in a regular QSO I think I'mgoing to reply: "hr born in 55". Maybe it will catch on.

You're right Detrick, normally you mention it and you run it. It is a lot of fun running an awards program for SKCC, also quite a bit of work. I've found that out in the past year.

I think Don NN8B would be an excellent person to contact. He has been maintaining the awards tracker and will be able help this along. I think he reads this forum often but you might want to send him a note directly.

Keep it simple, great words to work by.

I think the next step is to take a look at how the Centurion and Tribune rules are writting and then write up Young Buck rules in a similar format. Get them posted for comment but don't get bogged down by the responses you get.

I also think you should drop Tom KC9ECI, Melinda KI4CIA and Gordon N6WK a note with the proposed rules and get their go-ahead. I've never heard them reject an idea but it is a lot easier to make progress knowing the "Top 3" are behind you. Melinda might also weigh in on the age issue. It may turn out to not be an issue at all.

I've run the Straight Key Sprint and the K1Y Special Event so I have a little experience getting things rolling in a very short time. I'll be happy to assist you where I can. Best advice I can give you up front is to follow the shotgun project management approach... Ready, Aim, FIRE! A start date of 15 March or 1 April might make a good target and give you time to get everything lined up.

I didn't think about a QSO with someone licensed 1 year or less would automatically qualify you for the Young Buck. 1/1 = 1. Maybe that idea adds a complication that isn't needed. Some more thought has to be given to it I guess. I'll chew on it a while, but don't let that slow progress.

I've not actually seen your tracker yet - I guess I should look before I ask, but I'll ask anyway.

Does (or can) the tracker be set up for multiple SKCC awards? It would be nice to keep it all together instead of having to fill out a different log for each new award program. But I can see that could become a real challenge.

The only formula really is 1/age. Once a score of "1" is attained, you've earned the award.

Well, It's pretty much a manual thing. You must enter a "1" for each contact in the column and a simple formula adds them up at the bottom.

It ends up being a mostly visual log of who you worked and on which band you have at least one contact. I't not like DXKeeper that would show every log entry. Just the first time on each band or counting up to Centurion or now Tribune. Very simple.

Well, It's pretty much a manual thing. You must enter a "1" for each contact in the column and a simple formula adds them up at the bottom.

It ends up being a mostly visual log of who you worked and on which band you have at least one contact. I't not like DXKeeper that would show every log entry. Just the first time on each band or counting up to Centurion or now Tribune. Very simple.

I added a column for age. If you put in the op's age in the column, the function in the very bottom cell will tell you your current score (0.0153 points, or whatever). Basically, the function is: 1/sum(cell 1 to cell xx)

Please tell me how you made the top 2 rows stay in position while I scroll down the sheet? Can I do that with the bottom also, so the totals always show?
I am not an Excell expert. I learn every time I use it.

I have modified the Tracker again also, by adding the new Tribune award column. Plus some new stuff in the help file. It will be uploaded soon. Would like to make it scroll like yours.

K4VD wrote:I think Don NN8B would be an excellent person to contact. He has been maintaining the awards tracker and will be able help this along. I think he reads this forum often but you might want to send him a note directly.

Contacted and reply received. He's willing to add the 'age' column, when appropriate.

K4VD wrote:I think the next step is to take a look at how the Centurion and Tribune rules are writting and then write up Young Buck rules in a similar format. Get them posted for comment but don't get bogged down by the responses you get.

I've been working on that a bit today. I think I've got a good skeleton, but there's a few things I want to polish a bit more before putting it out for public consumption.

K4VD wrote:I also think you should drop Tom KC9ECI, Melinda KI4CIA and Gordon N6WK a note with the proposed rules and get their go-ahead. I've never heard them reject an idea but it is a lot easier to make progress knowing the "Top 3" are behind you. Melinda might also weigh in on the age issue. It may turn out to not be an issue at all.

I'll certainly contact them, and get their blessing. I do think I'll hold off on this until I've at least got a working set of "rules" written up.

K4VD wrote:Best advice I can give you up front is to follow the shotgun project management approach... Ready, Aim, FIRE! A start date of 15 March or 1 April might make a good target and give you time to get everything lined up.

Maybe you *are* a young buck! Ready, aim, fire, eh? Get this thing up and running quickly eh? Very young-buck like attitude, I think! March 15 is fast approaching, but April 1 might be reasonable (to me). A fun date to target if nothing else.

----------------------------

I've been mulling over the 'multiplier' aspect. I think I might have something on it. What about a 'bonus' for working on the novice bands? Something that would be used to 'reduce' the age of the person you've QSO'd with by 10% of the decade their in. For example:

I'm 28. I'm already worth a lot, and not in much need of a bonus. I fall into the "20's" decade. My "age" then, if our QSO is in the novice bands, would be 26 (10% of "20's" is 2... so, 28-2=26). A QSO with you (K4VD) on the novice bands would reduce your age by 4 (10% of "40's" is 4... so, 45-4=41). This would provide a bit of a boost to the value of an older contact, but only if the contact was made on novice/tech bands. Similarly, someone in their 90's is made 9 years more youthful... a kind of thanks for hanging around so long to let us work them?

Why the novice bands, you ask? Well, I'm "presuming" that everyone kinda starts out as a Novice. Sure, there's plenty of people that jump straight into General these days, but IIRC there are more Novice (Tech?) licenses out there than Generals or Extras. Plus, this award is about the idea of youth.. and, conceivably, a "novice" would be younger than a "general" or an "extra." Hopefully, too, this will encourage more contacts with the novices (or at least the possibility, since we'll be in their bands more often), and get them on the air even more.

I know I know, this bonus would be a royal PITA to validate. For that aspect, I'd lean towards the honor system, rather than having people track/submit what band the QSO was on as well. If you work me on a Novice band, record my age as 26, not 28. If you work me on another band, keep my age as I report.. 28. If you forget, the extra "points" you'll get isn't that much, so hopefully a mistake here and there won't throw everything way off and make it completely unfair.

In building "rules" for this, I've come across some bits on official awards. For the centurion, you get to add the 'C' to your number. The sprint offers a printable certificate in PDF format. The anniversary event has very nice paper awards being sent out. I can't seem to figure out what's done for 1x or 2xQRP awards. But, this all makes me think... what might be appropriate? Paper certificates? PDF certificates? A virtual pat on the back, and your name on a list somewhere? Some combination of all these, or something else altogether?

Don, NN8B, was kind enough to point out the following to me via email:

NN8B wrote:Detrick,

When I put the Age column in the Tracker and tested it with theformula 1/(sum of ages) I see where if someone worked just one 25 yearold they would probably win.There should be a factor for how many stations are worked. It wouldn'tbe fair for the guy who worked 20 stations with an average age of 40.1/25 = 0.04 and 1/800 = 0.00125, presuming the larger score wins.What if a guy works 10 stations averaging 80 years old. 1/800 =0.00125; a tie with the guy working 20 stations.

We need an algorithm that considers how many stations are worked.I am playing around with numbers. Not a math whizz here either, but Ido know a good beer when I drink one.

--73,Don, NN8BSKCC 36CMorse Traditionalist;Proud to Preserve the Code

To which, I replied back:

KI4STU wrote:I see I see.. yes, my excel formula is tragically flawed. actually, the more stations you work, the closer you get to 0 points. Obtaining 1 with that current excel formula would never be possible! Now, this excel formula isn't what I intended... I just hadn't had the requisite beer before creating it.

Let me see now.. here's what we have as the formula today (using arbitrary ages):

What I did, was create two age columns. Column L is just like the previous version I did, where you record the age of the other op in it. I also created a second column, K, but it is hidden. The value of a cell in K is calculated with the following:

IF(L3>0;1/L3;0)

Basically, if the value of the cell in column L is greater than 0, then the value of the corresponding cell in column K is set to 1/<column L cell value>. If the value of the cell in column L is NOT greater than 0, then the corresponding cell in column K is set to 0. Then, at the bottom of column L, the sum of the cells in column K is shown. I've tested this a bit, and the math *appears* to be functioning properly now. Someone check my work? I've put a sample age of "20" in one of the cells towards the bottom... feel free to plug in some more ages, and validate that it seems to be working properly now.

K4VD gave me a good idea for an award to go along with this. He suggested a seal of some sort, to be affixed to a member certificate. I've found some places I can get a custom embosser from (like the thing a notary would use to emboss their seal onto something), and some of those starburst gold-foil seals, like you might see on a diploma, or other official looking document. So, I'm off to propose this to the big three. I'll start working up a small bit of artwork to stamp onto the "award" too. Pending approval, I think maybe we might just move forward with this!

The date may have to change, depending on how much (if any) debate there is over the rules. Also, it might get pushed depending on how "the big three" take the idea of this award. Speaking of, someone provide some feedback on these rules, so I can get a feeling as to whether they look sane enough to move forward with. Given favourable response, I'll kick it over to them for the blessing in short order (really, this time, short order).

The Goal: Earn 1 point(Young Bucks should like this.. how hard can it be to get 1 point?!)

Basic Summary:"Points" are earned based on the age of the SKCC OM you have a QSO with. Or, rather, the inverse of their age. For example, a QSO with someone who is 65 years old would be worth 1/65 point. Likewise, a QSO with a Young Buck of 20 years would be worth 1/20 point. Once you have made contacts with enough SKCC OM to equal 1 whole point (or more), you're eligible for the award. Of course, since 1/20 is bigger than 1/65, bagging a Young Buck is worth more than an old one!

What are the nitty gritty rule details?

Both parties must be an SKCC Members, and may be counted once (not once per band, just once)

QSO's count starting on April 15, 2007 (official award start date)

This award is to encourage the younger operators of the SKCC to get on the air

Contact and exchange SKCC Number and age on any available band at anytime (warc bands too)

Bonuses will be available for working on novice bands (figuring many young bucks are novice/techs)

Contacts must have a Valid SKCC number at time of the QSO

QSO’s MUST be made using an SKCC approved key (Straight Key, BUG, Side Swipers)

Let's go over how you collect "points:"

- 1 point (or more) is needed to qualify- Each SKCC contact can be counted once (total, not per band)- A contact is worth "1/age" points. For example, if you work me (KI4STU/SKCC2577), I am 28, and worth 1/28, or 0.0357 points.- Contacts within novice freqs can 'reduce' the age of the other OM by 1. For example, if you work me, I am 28. If you work me on a novice band, I can be considered to be 27 (one year younger).- When your total points meets or exceeds '1', send your submissions* for this Award to:

ki4stu@merzhaus.org Submissions will be spot-checked

*nn8b is kind enough to maintain a spreadsheet for tracking progress towards SKCC awards. I have bribed him into adding a new column for this award. Use his spreadsheet to track your progress, and you'll find two advantages:(1) The spreadsheet does math, so you don't have to deal with fractions. Just put in the age of the OM you contact (the age they are at the time of your QSO, reduced by 1 if it qualifies for the bonus), and the spreadsheet will calculate the math for you. Your total points (or, fraction thereof), will be shown at the bottom.(2) Submitting the spreadsheet to me when you qualify for the award makes it a bit easier for me. I'm not going to turn away submissions sent via some other method (word doc, other spreadsheet, database dump), but try to make it something I don't need to work too hard over. Again, NN8B's spreadsheet makes it all easy.